VANESSA L. COSBY: 1964-2010

Trevor Jensen, TRIBUNE REPORTERCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Vanessa L. Cosby, loud, fearless and outspoken in all aspects of her life, did whatever she could to help people who had been in prison get pointed in the right direction through her work with the Safer Foundation.

If her clients didn't toe the line, they could count on an earful.

"She also provided them with tough love. She'd confront them," said her friend Janet Wright-Moore, who recalled being on the phone with Ms. Cosby during visits with her clients. "She'd say, 'I'm keeping you on the line, I'm about to cuss him out and I want you here in case they get jazzy back with me.'"

Ms. Cosby, 45, died of natural causes Saturday, Jan. 2, in her Calumet City home, said her brother Marcus.

Ms. Cosby worked with the Safer Foundation through her church, Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side.

The foundation, which provides job training and placement and other services to people with criminal records, started working with churches about five years ago. Not long after, Ms. Cosby became the liaison at Trinity, said Jodina Hicks, Safer's program director.

Ms. Cosby worked with a caseload of about 60 clients a year and also managed Safer's 10-unit building for the homeless on the West Side. Her big personality never got in the way of her job, Hicks said.

"Vanessa was not about Vanessa, she was about the clients she served," Hicks said. "She brought a lot of commitment for her clients."

Described by her brother as "always loud, always exciting," Ms. Cosby was born in Coldwater, Miss., and moved with her family to Chicago when she was 1.

She graduated from Julian High School and lived for a time in Memphis, where she discovered an aptitude for softball and married Arthur Shannon Jr. They later divorced.

A little more than a year ago, she and Wright-Moore started a group for women called Babies Got Back to promote greater physical, mental and spiritual health.

Ms. Cosby, who had diabetes, had lost a lot of weight and was eager to help others eat better. Fun was emphasized in workouts that included pole-dancing and a "Booty Boot Camp."

"We called one another 'sistah-girlfriends,'" Wright-Moore said. "She embodied the ministry of friendship."

Growing up the only girl with five brothers -- "a rose among thorns," she would say -- Ms. Cosby early on developed the brash personality that later served her well in dealing with tough former convicts.

"I think she used it sometimes as a defense mechanism, to assure people knew that they could not take advantage of her," her brother said. "She took it as her life's mission to raise up the quality of life for people who had been written off."

Ms. Cosby also is survived by her mother, Bobbie; a daughter, Erika Powell; four other brothers, Endra, Roger, Donald and Roderick; and a granddaughter.